Air Traffic Control Freaks

Americans are hyper-sensitive when it comes to aviation controls, and for understandable reasons.

On February 17th, a child going to work with his air traffic controller father marked the beginnings of a controversy. Audio recordings show that the child was giving directions to pilots at JFK airport. The pilots knew exactly what was going on. The air traffic controllers did too. The entire time nobody seemed shocked, alarmed, hesitant, or concerned. The situation was clearly under control.

But, in our hypersensitive environment, this has been blown into not just a national story, but a big controversy. The FAA released this statement:

"Pending the outcome of our investigation, the employees involved in this incident are not controlling air traffic. This behavior is not acceptable and does not demonstrate the kind of professionalism expected from all FAA employees."

I'll concede that it's probably not the best idea in the world to allow small children, even supervised, to have any part in directing pilots of large planes full of people. But, honestly, does anyone think for a moment that the pilots were utilizing the information from little Timmy in a critical situation?

I remember as a little kid, my dad would put me on his lap and let me drive the car, and even the pickup sometimes. I loved to steer, and that's all I could do, because I couldn't reach the pedals. He did all the braking and accelerating. And if I started veering too far to the left or right, he would take over. All of this was done on a quiet country road that saw no more than a car an hour on average. Legal? Heavens no. A good idea? Probably not. Dangerous? Not even close. It wasn't as though he was letting me speed down the freeway at 75mph.

In fact, I could argue that the air traffic controller and the pilots involved were probably paying far more attention to what was going on than usual to compensate for the unorthodox situation.

I don't think an investigation or suspension or anything else real serious was required here. Here's how it should have been handled: "Hey, Bill, probably shouldn't bring your kid to work and let him direct air traffic. Can you imagine what would happen if the Drudge Report got a hold of this?"

Anyway -- we're always looking for the next controversy, the next outrage, the next thing to can somebody over. Perspective, people. Perspective.